


that which is lost

by Merricat_Blackwood



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I AM SORRY, What Have I Done, no happy ending, redemption equals death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7114810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merricat_Blackwood/pseuds/Merricat_Blackwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia always knew exactly where her son was going to hide ... until the day she didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that which is lost

**that which is lost**

 

_I don't know why we had to lose  
The ones who took so little space. _

 

_~ ~ The National, “Hard To Find”_

 

 

_**he was never hard to find, before.** _

 

A counselor told Leia once that her little boy was “unpredictable” and it was all that she could do not to laugh. She took Ben to that counselor once and never again. Maybe that was close-minded, maybe short-sighted, but it's too late to change it now.

 

_**unpredictable? please, i always know what he's going to do next** _

 

This was never more evident than when they played hide and seek. If Leia had ever been honest about it, each of her turns as seeker would have ended in seconds, but where would be the fun in that?

 

(Ben had the same knowledge of her, but no such restraint; when it came his turn to seek, he always ran right to her, his dark curls bouncing, brown eyes shining, his hands wildly flinging aside whatever she had tried to hide behind, hurling his small body against hers _I found you Mommy I found you!_ And she would laugh, catch him in her arms, swing him around so easily)

 

_**if only he could find his way in the world so easily** _

 

But Leia tried to teach her little boy patience, in the form of a game. She would creep around the apartment on tiptoe, peeking into closets and under the beds and behind the curtains, everywhere her son was not. Pretending that she didn't already know where he was, that she hadn't known even before she covered her eyes and started counting and heard the sound of his sock-feet skidding away.

 

_**i always knew where he was going to hide …** _

 

… _**until the day I didn't.**_

 

(Luke showed up on Hosnian Prime, at their door in the middle of the night; Han was home and Leia was distracted but when the chime sounds she still knows who sounded it even though she doesn't understand why and when she goes to answer it she _r u n s_

 

Han is a few steps behind her, clumsy with sleep

 

Luke is standing there in the dark in the rain his hood drawn dark over his face his shoulders slumped a man defeated a man alone)

 

_**where is he** _

 

(“I'm sorry, Leia,” her brother says in a voice no louder than the roar of the rain and inside Leia is screaming and she knows that Luke can hear her but it's Han who breaks the quiet it's Han who says “Luke? What are you doing here? Where's Ben?”)

 

_**i don't know** _

 

("I lost him," Luke confesses, hanging his head. Leia does not make a sound she is cold she is frozen she cannot move "What the hell do you mean you _lost_ him?!" Han is yelling; he has one hand on Leia's shoulder and he is shaking, his voice is shaking too "Damn it Luke where the hell is my son?" and they all know what he is really asking _**is Ben dead**_ but somehow Leia knows that this is worse)

 

_**he's g o n e** _

 

(" ... to the Dark side," Luke is saying now, lifting his eyes to meet Leia's, their usually kind and warm blue is cold and damp with tears and he looks so much _older_ than he did the last time she saw him and his words don't even make her flinch, because she knew what he was going to say before he said it, and Han says nothing, just grips Leia's shoulder tighter, like he needs her to balance him, and with a steel spine as always, she does)

 

_**i looked for him but for the first time ever, i couldn't find him** _

 

He has hidden from her for six years now. Hidden too long and too well and with a stubbornness that could only belong to a boy made of equal parts her and Han. She has looked for her son, has searched for him, has sent his father in search of him too … but this time, Ben will not let himself be found.

 

_**where is my little boy? where did he go?** _

 

Her son's presence in her life has been defined by his absence since his early teens, when she thought it best to send him away with Luke. But missing him all these years and missing him now are light years apart. Now, every memory is drenched with pain. When she was nineteen, watching Alderaan explode before her terrified eyes, Leia thought she would never know pain greater than that.

 

Now she has been proven wrong.

 

_**my baby, lost in the darkness** _

 

Somehow the loss of this one boy has left a crater in her heart that swallows up all other empty space around it, even the void left by an entire planet, an entire people. _But he's not dead,_ she reminds herself sometimes. _He's only lost. One day, he might come back._ Surely he must want to come back. One day, they could all be whole again.

 

_**one day i will find him, or he will find me** _

 

This hope is what sustains Leia, and this hope does not die, even when Han does. Because the agony that lances through her when her husband falls is too great to be felt by one human person. Somewhere in the dark, her son is sobbing, frightened and more lost than ever before.

 

_**come and find me, Ben, come home, it's not too late** _

 

After Starkiller, the fighting takes a turn. Day by day, blow by blow, the First Order is weakening, their military might crumbling, their stranglehold on remote worlds slowly loosening. There is much talk throughout the galaxy: in cantinas, in marketplaces, on the Resistance base. They say that the Jedi have risen again. They also say that Snoke has lost his enforcer, though no one can say where Kylo Ren went.

 

Leia has her own ideas about that, but she can only hope his path will lead him to her sooner or later. First, though, her own destiny leads her to a planet as harsh and unforgiving as the regime it houses. The First Order's most vital base, home to the Supreme Leader himself. And the Resistance are not the only ones who have come to burn the First Order down.

 

_**i know you're here somewhere, Ben** _

 

somewhere beyond the clashing Resistance fighters and stormtroopers, somewhere behind the curtain of fire and smoke and the dance of blaster bolts in the air

 

_**unpredictable? please, i know what you're going to do, you're here for the same reason i am, you're here to hurt the one who hurt you, you're here to make him pay, to make him bleed** _

 

And there is plenty of blood today, blood of friend blood of foe blood of family, but none of it is shed in vain. Fires cool to ashes, shouts move into the distance, smoke billows weakly through the air. The war, as they have understood it, is over. Exhausted, exhilarated, Leia drops her blaster to the ground. Stands and waits for him to find her.

 

_**come out, come out, wherever you are ...** _

 

He stumbles through the smoke and dust, his black clothes and hair turned gray with it, his dark eyes unfocused, trailing droplets of blood in his wake, but his faltering steps still lead him right to her …

 

_**here i am** _

 

There is something dangling from Ben's gloved hand, his fingers digging deep into it, a death grip on his prize. It takes Leia several moments of unblinking staring to realize that the trophy is a misshapen head, severed savagely at the neck, still smoking from the lightsaber, pale features warped and twisted and bald.

 

(She has never seen his face, but she knows it's Snoke)

 

_**we won** _

 

Her heart is warm with fierce pride when her son tosses the head of their enemy at her feet. But that warmth dies like a flame deprived of air, when Ben sways on his feet before her, blood dripping in a steady flow from his side, his nose, his ears, the corners of his mouth. Her son is pale, so pale …

 

_**Ben?** _

 

As though she had spoken aloud, his eyes meet hers and hold. The world around them fades away, all the smoke and the sparks and the shouting. All Leia can see are her baby's eyes, sad mirrors of her own. There is so much pain in their depths, but then ... a faint sparkle. For a heart-stopping moment she catches a glimpse of the dark luster in his limp curls, sees the beauty marks on his cheeks beneath dried blood and ash. The bloody corners of his mouth quirk up in a wide, proud but shaky grin, revealing crooked, reddened teeth.

 

" … found you, Mommy," Ben gasps out. And then he falls.

 

Leia cries out, reaches for him, and the weight of him carries her to the ground, but that doesn't matter now.  

 

_**nothing matters now, or ever will again** _

 

For the last time, Leia catches her little boy in her arms, and holds him tight.

 

_**what we find, we do not always get to keep.** _

 

. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so ... yeah. this is one of those ideas that gets in my head and won't leave me alone until it's written down. (and i'm trying/hoping to write and post more stories in general, so ... ) let me know what you think!


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